


Overcoming

by Emilycollins00



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Comfort, Grief, His dad tries, Mention of Nachi, family support, trigger warnings: death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29153604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emilycollins00/pseuds/Emilycollins00
Summary: Pre-Mankai!Omi has suffered through a lot. Who said he healed the right way every time?Where a roaring rampage of revenge turns into a strained but very much needed father-son talk.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Overcoming

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I wrote such a strong yet delicate theme so again, chapter warnings of heavy stuff.  
> Please take care of yourselves!

Omi had _destroyed_ them.

He didn’t know how he had managed to get out of there alive -or maybe he did, last scraps of anger still flooding through his body- but there he was, back home. It would have been almost time to start making dinner if his brothers had been inside. Thankfully, both Kai and Gaku were on school trips with their respective classes, and a small part of Omi sighs relieved. 

It would have taken a lot of effort to successfully hide himself and had he been discovered, some more to explain that the blood from of his knuckles wasn’t his own. Though at this point he feels it wouldn’t have mattered. Nothing did.

In a trance, he walks towards the freezer. He had been hospitalized for such a long time it wasn’t surprising to see they still had all those frozen pre-made meals reserved. He takes out a bag of peas and presses it against the back of his head, wincing at the sudden coldness. His ears are ringing and his ribs hurt like hell.

In a real fight, people tend to think you can get magical killing abilities if you just rely on your instincts or have enough adrenaline in your system, but that wasn’t it. In fact, while adrenaline keeps you alive, it doesn’t make you a good fighter. It makes you shaky, throws your aim off and exhausts you. The first thing any fighter learns is to take advantage of those instincts, if you want to survive.

_Find’ em. Make ‘em flinch. Make ‘em close their eyes. Make ‘em curl up in a ball so fucking bad they can’t fight back._

He had followed that voice, and then everything turned red. The playful brawls he had had when he was younger, even later with the gang, had nothing to do with what he had done to those people a few hours ago. He leans his body resting on the wall, and wonders if Nachi saw him.

He was tired, he was so, so tired, and his ribs hurt. 

“Omi? Is that you?” 

His body turns slightly, encountering his father in the middle of the hallway. He usually looked deflated after coming from work, but this time his whole stance was tense, Omi could tell.

It reminded him of the time after his mother had died, and he focused his whole self on work, arriving late everyday and leaving Omi and his siblings somewhat tending for themselves. The sudden reminder of her still made his stomach twist in a weird way.

When his mom died, no one had told young Omi that the funeral wasn’t the hardest part. The hardest part was next day, and the next one, and every day after that. The hardest part was the life people expected him to live with a dagger stuck in the chest, trying to shatter him into two halves. 

And experiencing it a second time was just fucking cruel.

Because once more there had only been one funeral and a thousand days ahead of him, and if he was honest, he didn’t want to see a single one.

After a few moments of neither of them speaking, his father breaks eye contact “Seat on that chair” and disappears into the bathroom, taking off his tie and jacket on his way.

Omi drifts silently onto the chair. His eyelids droop, like he’s about to sleep, but tilts his head up slightly when he notices his father taking another chair in front of him. He places a bowl of water, disinfectant and some ointment on the table.

“What have you done to yourself” he muses, more to himself than anything, and starts wiping away the blood crusted to his temple, easing the touch every time his son winces. There’s a blossoming bruise on his cheek, as well as a split on the right side of his lip “Let me see your back.”

Omi takes his shirt off and turns to the side, staring at the tiles of the floor, face impassive. For a while it’s just the two of them in the darkness of the kitchen, the only lights and noises coming from the street.

The head of the Fushimi family was a regular man, a bit on the strong side- he had always liked wrestling- and definitely not perfect. Many years had passed yet he still didn’t know how to cook properly. His wife had always laughed and rolled her eyes at his failed efforts. It had been his oldest son who had been able to climb that fence. He really was the living image of her, both physically and behaviour-like.

But at this moment, he didn’t see it.

Where once was light and warmth in those ember eyes, now there was emptiness. And as a father, Fushimi didn’t know what to do. It had been a month filled with anxiety and angst that made him have nightmares every night. He thought he would lose his son in the hospital bed and now, even after being back home, he still felt he might lose him.

“You can put your shirt back on” he manages to say, and turns to close the ointment cap. Both stay in the same position for a while “This could have ended in the hospital”

“It did. For them”

“You can’t keep going like this Omi. Whatever you did tonight is not what Nachi would-”

“No dad, that’s where you are wrong. What I should have done is something sooner. When _that_ happened I should have-” Omi stops, turning his hands into fists. His eyes burn and anger is starting to rise up again “It’s not fair.”

“It’s not, never said it was. I just wish you saw-”

“Don’t talk to me as if I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone”

“Omi-”

“I never said anything about the way you dealt with Mom’s death while I had to take care of everyone. When you threw yourself into work, Nachi was the one who helped me get out of that hole and-” he stops talking, lowering his head. He feels like throwing up.

“So now you are just going to throw away your life? Is that it?”

“Who cares if I do. This whole time I should have been dead”

His son hasn’t just said that.

The ground drops from beneath him along his stomach, and he can hardly manage an inhale past the lump caught into the back of his throat “Omi, please” 

He is aware of the sensation of blood draining from his face, and he sways slightly in his seat as his son continues speaking; rapidly now, as if a dam had been broken, and all the words pent up within him were battling to come out at once.

“It feels like living on borrowed time, dad. Every day that passed and I see myself in the mirror, I could have been-!” and finally, finally Omi looks up to him, wet cheeks, amber eyes looking wholly devastated “I don’t know what to do” he gasps “I miss mom so much. Still do. And now with Nachi gone- everything-” he’s unable to continue “Shit”

Omi shakes his head, breathing fast, like he is choking- overwhelmed.

He doesn’t remember seeing anyone look so wrecked. Not his oldest son. Omi, the boy who saved this whole family from going into depression by adopting a mother-like role. The boy who had become the pilar of the house, when it should have been him.

The scent of distress and grief was overwhelming. Did his son look like this when his wife died too? So lost? So vulnerable?

Because fuck Fushimi if he had. Fuck him for being the worst example and for allowing himself to fall so into despair when his kids needed him. That’s something he can’t change now, and that will follow him for the rest of his life. 

But that doesn’t mean he will let his son feel the same pain twice. Not this time. Not anymore. And he _has_ to make him see it. 

“You’ve got a guilt complex, Omi. I should have noticed it earlier, done something, and I deeply apologize for that. Because never would I have imagined you would try to hurt yourself like this” he trembles and breathes slowly, trying with effort to stay calm. It’s difficult “If you think for a second, anyone is going to thank you for making an exchange like that, I…” 

He places one of his hands behind Omi’s head and brings both of their foreheads closer until they almost touch “Listen to me, it’s not your fault people die in accidents. It’s not your fault people die in wars. It was _definitely_ not your fault that Nachi died that day. And no one, anywhere, will ever ask for you to trade your life to fix something you didn’t do”

Omi’s throat closes as he presses his lips together, unable to say anything back, an intense wave of emotions erupting within him. His dad’s voice is shaky, strained, as if he’s bottling up inside. For the first time, Omi doesn’t just see dark circles beneath his father’s eyes, or the now red, irritated rims around them. He sees this pain and guilt, the same look he had wore earlier along with something else he couldn’t identify.

His father bends, wrapping his son in his arms, who flinches at the unexpected contact. After a moment of tension, he wraps his arms around too slowly, then tightly. His heart aches “It’s so painful, dad” Omi sobs, pressing his face into his shoulder “I-I wasn’t there to- I couldn’t-” words tumbled out of his mouth. There’s nothing more he can say that will lessen the grief, so Fushimi just rocks him back and forth slowly, as much as he can from his position.

After a while, when Omi seems to have cried himself out for the moment, he pulls back slightly “I know it’s hard, more than that. You do too, from experience. But it’s going to get better”

“You don’t know that” he points out weakly, voice low and wrecked from crying.

“I do” his father says, shaking his head and places a hand on his shoulder “You made me realize that, big guy. That things get better if you have people willing to wait for you”

Omi almost lets out another whimper again, shivering at the sudden gentleness his father pronounced that nickname. He hadn’t call him that since their mother died. Since Omi started taking the mother role at home. He remembers loving that nickname because it meant he was growing fast, and that he would surpass his father in height soon. Maybe even win against him during a wrestling match in the living room, while his mother and brothers cheered for him.

He hesitates for a moment, and then looks up with uneasiness and a bit of hope- maybe for those words to be true, for his father to be right- Because it’s hurts too much. And when he does, there’s a pair of familiar old eyes, looking straight at him with fiery determination “I wasn’t there the first time, Omi. But I can be optimistic enough for both of us, as long as you need me to”

A few lonely tears fall again as Omi turns his eyes back to his hands, opening and closing them. They are sore, just like the rest of his body. 

And then, he nods.

It’s hardly noticeable, and almost feels like a mistake, but he nods. 

They stand up, and as soon as they do, his father ruffles his head. There’s a nostalgic comfort to it “Go sleep. It’s late”

Omi tries to say something back, but hesitates and just nods again instead, heading to his own room, followed by his father gaze. He still looks uncertain, but it makes sense. His burden was just unpacked and it’s not an obstacle they could pass in one night, with only one conversation.

Grieving is hard, but he’s not alone this time. And somehow, when Omi slips into bed, a heavy feel seems to has been lifted off his shoulders. Before his head hits the pillow, he thinks how after all these long days- all these long years- tonight, he might rest just a little bit easier. 

On the other room, his father lays on the bed and looks outside the window into the night sky, last thoughts before sleep comes for him about his son. A wish for him to gain enough strength to come back to him and his brothers, and to try to look forward to living again. Maybe by meeting new people, discovering hobbies, it didn’t matter.

“I’ve got you” he promises.

His son deserved to be happy one more time.


End file.
